


treehouse

by GreenLies



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Olympics, Rivalry, love is stored in oikage, very lightly implied nsfw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:06:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28483605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenLies/pseuds/GreenLies
Summary: Of course he had come back. And how silly of Kageyama to even think otherwise. Oikawa stands, and he is still taller than Kageyama, a hint of stubble on his chin, smirk warped slightly by the pimple on his cheek. Grotesque, like Kageyama had always known.Grotesque, but still beautiful.Kageyama sees him when he is nine years old; a pull that sweeps him in as he scrambles for something to grasp but finds nothing, a thrilling terror.Fifteen years later, he sees Kageyama.
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 13
Kudos: 143





	treehouse

**Author's Note:**

> hello its oikage hours
> 
> huge thank you to [nicki](https://twitter.com/ttodomomo) for beta-ing, you're an absolute star 
> 
> as always, please read the tags! enjoy <333

The first time Kageyama sees him is a mistake when he is stumbling home from his practice at the elementary schools. Drills. They had done running drills, he remembers, and at the end, suicide runs, sprinting until Kageyama felt as though he would collapse. It had lasted longer than usual; their coach had been upset.

He passes the middle school, and his head tunes out the squeaking of shoes and thudding of balls hitting the ground, until it doesn't. His feet lead him there before his brain registers, and that is when he sees him for the first time. 

Kageyama couldn’t remember the color of his hair or the loose t-shirt he wore, the surrounding faces in the gym, or even what was going through his own head at the time. Because the boy was enthralling; mysterious, and gorgeous, perhaps even more so by the way his eyes burned, the way his wrist snapped as he shot the ball over the net with a strange, minute perfection a moment before his feet slammed into the ground. His face was arranged into something dark and dangerous, a pull that swept Kageyama in as he scrambled for something to grasp but found nothing, a thrilling terror shooting through him at the knowledge that this boy would decimate his friends, his enemies, and perhaps even Kageyama, grinding them to dust if only so he could take the space for himself.

Beautiful. 

-

He cries beautiful tears. 

Kageyama is there, the first time he blows his knee. Oikawa Tooru. That was the name he had learned, the one that tickled in the back of his head, intentions unclear and overbearing. 

He is in the back room, laying the mats flat on top of one another—a menial task, a satisfying one, when he hears a scream. 

“Idiotkawa! What did you do?” 

Sobs lace through Oikawa’s beautiful voice. “I don’t know, I don’t _know,_ I’m _sorry.”_

“Shut up, it’s okay, just—” A grunt. “Just come here, it’s okay.” 

Kageyama peeks out of the room to catch a glimpse as their voices fade, and immediately wishes he hadn’t. Oikawa’s knee is swollen to the size of a large grapefruit, nearly purple, and tears stream down his face as Iwaizumi holds him up, one of Oikawa’s arms over his shoulders. Several pangs hit Kageyama at once, none of which he can decipher. 

He stays in the back room long after they are gone before going to the court to sit on the floor where Oikawa had cried, looking at his own knees and wondering if perhaps he, too, would have to rip himself apart.

-

Kageyama learned soon thereafter that Oikawa did not like him. 

The snarling glances, the side-eyes, the way Oikawa would always cut in front of him; they were things he hadn’t seen until it was too late. That was what teammates did, after all, or so Kageyama had believed; slapped each other on the back a bit too hard, competed with each other a bit too intensely, and teased each other when they asked for help.

Forcing Oikawa to lash out, however, was never part of Kageyama’s plan. 

He pondered as he walked home what he could have done to make Oikawa so enraged. There was bright fury in his eyes and a growl in his voice, and he had seemed close to tears. Volleyball didn’t have room for people who let their emotions control them; it wasn’t made for those who would be crushed under the pressure. 

Kageyama hoped that Oikawa wouldn't crush under the pressure. 

Or perhaps he already had.

-

Oikawa himself has become infinitely more unbearable since the incident, unable to go a day without teasing Kageyama in some way or another. If it were anyone else, perhaps Kageyama would even care. As it is, he doesn’t mind, not when he gets to see the hot sparks that dance in Oikawa’s eyes during a challenge.

It makes Kageyama feel slightly giddy that _he_ is the challenge. 

And it’s difficult not to stare when determination slurs Oikawa’s movements, when it makes his body unreadable during practice matches. Kageyama can’t help but look and wonder how a face so grotesque can still be so beautiful.

He wants to stay with Oikawa, continue to challenge and be challenged, keep up the subtle competition that had been dangled in front of him since he stepped foot in the gym. But Oikawa avoids him now, makes fun of him, refuses to look him in the eye. 

If Oikawa isn’t able to survive a blow to his pride—a small one, made by someone as insignificant as Kageyama—how could he ever catch up?

There are some days where it does not make sense; some days where his teammates would turn their heads and lower their eyes and Kageyama would get the urge to shake Oikawa’s shoulders, to scream that _he could understand,_ understand like nobody else, understand the potential Kageyama saw in everyone surrounding them and Oikawa himself. The potential that he could draw out in a way Kageyama wasn’t able to. 

But Oikawa would turn away, too, after that, and Kageyama would be left with nothing at all. 

\--

With the third-years graduating comes a dull throb in his chest—strange and aching. Kageyama is confused. It makes his stomach turn and his throat constrict, almost as though he is about to cry. 

Oikawa accepts his award with a smug smile, eyes narrowed. Kageyama feels a flame in his belly at the sight, low and warm, and raises his chin. Whatever kind of game this was, whatever challenge he was being issued, he wouldn’t back down. 

The third years’ graduation feels like the start and the finish: nothing before, nothing after. A black hole. Boundless, timeless, the end of all things. 

But life does go on. 

Kageyama practices his jump serve. He sets to his teammates. It’s almost instinctive, involuntarily, how he ends up copying Oikawa’s mannerisms. Putting the net back up after everyone has gone home. Trying to fly. 

In his mind’s eye, he sees Oikawa the same way he did when he was younger and noticed him for the first time—weightless, limitless, beautiful. 

The rest of the year bends and twists as Kageyama loses himself in the darkness. Oikawa would be able to do better. He could connect with his teammates, he could draw out their potential with saccharine words and a plaster smile. Shadows twist themselves around Kageyama’s arms, whispers of words making his movements lethargic. He is not good enough. He cannot be good enough, not when Oikawa waits above him, nails sharp with ice on his tongue. 

He feels hollow, trying to pinpoint where the fight he bore for so long had gone. This was it, the knowledge that he would never see Oikawa again—not really, anyway, because the boy would become a man, would grow, and he would dip his toes in the river and perhaps float away. Kageyama would mean nothing to him at all, not when he had been dampened to a dark smudge in Oikawa’s life like the teacher that had taken points off for a silly mistake or the woman at the market who handed him bruised apples. 

Kageyama will miss it. He will miss the fire of competition, the pressure surrounding him from all ends, the final push to be better that he cannot see himself finding anywhere else. The want. The hunger. He will miss it, misses it already. 

_I miss you._

\--

Kageyama expects many things in his third year of high school. He expects to be looked up to by the team. He expects pressure, thrust upon him when he’s only eighteen, pressure for him to decide his entire life in such a short time. He is still a boy at heart, clutching his knees when he returns home. The pressure is waiting, ready to snake out its tendrils and pierce into him, screaming _what will you do now, Kageyama?_

Kageyama is still a boy; he does not know. He does not know what he wants, only that he wants _this,_ the fire of competition that has been with him all his life, through elementary and middle and high school, people coming to rival him at every turn. He wants this, but he is not special, does not deserve to get it, he thinks.

He expected this pressure but it still takes him apart slowly, delicately, quietly enough that he sometimes does not realize it is happening until he is home, in the locker room or the hall and realizes that his clock is counting down and that he will graduate soon. Suddenly, he cannot see what the future could possibly hold, unsure whether he wants to fling himself in head first to find out. 

Kageyama has felt and feels this white noise in his head, a pressure blocking everything out, so though he has grown to expect strangeness in this time, he can say with certainty that he did not expect Oikawa Tooru to be sitting in the club room when he walks through after an extended practice by himself. 

He has grown slightly, and he looks, in a word, strong. Strong, but also more than that; there’s something in his eyes that wasn’t there before, glittering, and behind that he still wears the feral determination Kageyama had seen the first time they met and then kept seeing. 

“Oikawa.” He isn't afraid, doesn’t feel the need to be. Not now. Not with years of experience under his belt; not with a team looking up to him; not with Oikawa standing in front of him, tangible and beautiful and real, _here_ after Kageyama believed Oikawa had only been a figment, gone and greater after he graduated. Oikawa was more. Oikawa had _earned_ more, high school being nothing but a roadblock. Kageyama knew that, so he does not know why Oikawa is here now. 

“Tobio-chan.” The sly lilt of Oikawa’s voice has never left his mind, but hearing it after so long is like stepping into a warm bath, the words running hot through his veins. They tripped off Oikawa’s tongue like he hadn’t even had to try, like it was instinct. Of course he had come back, his voice says. And how silly of Kageyama to even think otherwise.

Oikawa stands, and he is still taller than Kageyama, a hint of stubble growing, smirk warped slightly by the pimple on his cheek. Grotesque, like Kageyama had always known. Grotesque, but still beautiful. 

He takes one step forward, and another, and flings himself into Oikawa’s arms. 

Oikawa is warm and solid, and in that moment, Kageyama knows all of him; the child whose jacket Kageyama had gripped when nerves overtook him and the gangly teenager that had threatened him when he first came to inter-high and the man, here, now, that he wraps his arms around and holds tight.

Oikawa is strong. He grasps Kageyama as though his life depends on it, as though if he didn’t, perhaps they would crumble, collapse into a pile of nothing. Kageyama grips hard as well. He is delicate, and Oikawa wraps around him like a vice, holding him together and refusing to let go. The comfort he had always sought, created by who he had always recognized to be his greatest competition, the one who would be willing to keep up every step of the way. A juxtaposition of aching want and deep comfort, burying Kageyama. Waves roll over him as he is, once again, unable to hold on. 

“Tobio.” The word is murmured into his hair and Kageyama closes his eyes, pressing his face against Oikawa’s chest, allowing himself to seek refuge in the solace and trusting the arms around him to hold him up as he lets himself fall and fall and fall.

They stay like that for what could be five minutes or fifty. Kageyama simply lets himself be held, soaking up Oikawa’s scent, his shirt still sticky with sweat and his trembling breaths almost too loud.

He lets go first, forcing white-knuckled fists to unclench from the back of Oikawa’s jacket and drop back to his own sides. It was too long and yet it had been nothing near long enough.

Following suit, Oikawa steps back quickly. Kageyama’s hands shake as the blood flows back into them, making his fingers tingle. 

Oikawa sits down almost primly, leaning forward, hands on his knees as he glances at Kageyama. Kageyama ignores the chill on the back of his neck and tries not to meet Oikawa’s hard gaze, knowing he would be locked in, would begin to fall again. 

They stare at each other for a moment. The words are suddenly back in Kageyama’s brain, the ones that had run through years ago and are still there even now, overflowing, growing bigger and bigger until he just can’t hold them inside. 

“I missed you.” 

Oikawa’s face breaks into a beautiful smile; the sun meeting the sea, all warmth and delight, the rays warming Kageyama’s shoulders in a new pattern of love and making him smile too, barely there, but visible still. Kageyama wants it, wants the smile, wants the warmth, wants him to stay. Just to make sure that he won’t lose the beautiful picture that has been painted before him, he says it again. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Oikawa replies, and there’s a faint blush on the apples of his cheeks, painted by a light hand. Kageyama wants to touch it. “That’s why I came back. I wanted to say goodbye.”

“Goodbye?” Kageyama’s head is light, fluttery. He feels pinned by Oikawa’s expression and his words.

“Let’s talk about you, first.” Oikawa wears a strange expression now, the same one he would wear when he was captain and dragged them into a meeting to instruct them on how to rip the opposing team apart. “You’re upset.”

Oikawa knew; Oikawa always knew. Kageyama supposes that, by now, he shouldn’t be surprised that Oikawa is able to pinpoint him with deadly accuracy, able to read him after all this time. 

“I am.” 

“Why?” Oikawa’s hands come up between them and Kageyama grips them between his. Comfort, almost instinctive, automatic. “What’s wrong?” 

“I don’t know what I’m going to do.” The words spill easily past Kageyama’s lips, what he had been keeping under lock and key, the uncertainty that would send prickles of fear throughout his body. “After high school. After all this. I don’t know what to do.” 

“Tobio,” Oikawa says, voice firm. He squeezes Kageyama’s hands once, twice, and then lets go and falls back until he is leaning against the lockers. Kageyama feels cold at the lack of contact, but Oikawa’s gaze is settled back on his face now, warming his cheeks instead. “I’m going to Argentina.” 

An electrifying pang runs over Kageyama, and he recognizes it as anger. It shoots through him, white-hot and relentless, running up to his neck and through his chest and over the finger he had bandaged after a bad sprain. “Why Argentina? What the hell is in Argentina?” 

“I got an offer.” Oikawa’s stance is growing more confident with every word. “There’s no use getting angry, Tobio-chan. I’ve had this conversation with Iwaizumi, and my parents, and I’ll have it with you. I’m going.” 

“But _why?”_ Kageyama tries not to sound like he is feeling; confused, transfixed, and just a bit shattered; fragile without Oikawa’s arms holding him together. He isn’t quite sure he manages it. 

“I can’t stay here. You know I can’t.” Kageyama shakes his head. He does not want to know. “I can’t stay here with all of you… with everything… it’s too much. I need to go somewhere new.” 

Kageyama shakes his head again. He can’t help the tremble in his voice when he asks, “Who’s going to keep up with me?” 

Oikawa smiles again, slow and languid and beautiful. It is like honey settling over Kageyama, a forced warmth. “You’ll find someone. You always do.”

“You were going to be the best,” Kageyama says. It will not work. He knows it won’t work, but his mouth begins to run from him, spewing nonsense, not wanting to let go of the one he had always known could keep up with him. He tries again. “We were going to be the best. You wanted to beat me. Don’t you want to beat me?” 

“Oh, Tobio-chan,” Oikawa chirps. His eyes are full of mirth, regarding Kageyama almost gleefully, and there is something bubbling just below that; something primal, evil, something that had never left and again, it is like Kageyama is ten years old, leaving elementary school and seeing Oikawa Tooru spike for the first time.

He stands and hooks a knuckle under Kageyama’s chin, forcing him to regard Oikawa fully; Oikawa, in all his determination and glory, full of _want_ in a way Kageyama understands only too well.

“I still will.” 

\--

That night, Kageyama lies on his bed with his back pressed against the covers, looking at the ceiling, emotions whirling through him. The sticky-sweet feeling of want, the low buzz of shame, and most of all, a burning desire low in his stomach, screaming that he could not let Oikawa beat him.

_“I still will.”_

Kageyama knows; has always known, maybe, what he has to do. Oikawa is just the last piece of the puzzle, the missing key that showed him what he had been considering in the back of his head all along.

Then and there, Kageyama smiles and wonders whether Oikawa, wherever he was, can somehow sense what he thinks next, flinging the words out with a hot sizzle of resolve. 

_Not a fucking chance._

\--

The next time he sees Oikawa is six years later, and it is in the worst possible way. 

When Oikawa said he was going to Argentina, Kageyama didn’t think he meant this. 

Blue is a good color on him; it contrasts with his tan skin, darker from when they last saw each other. His body is smooth and polished, muscular with no hints of the weakness he had in high school. 

His gaze falls on Kageyama, and Kageyama feels a chill run through his body. He is almost glad that there are throngs of people between them, because as it looks now, Oikawa could eat him alive. 

Oikawa’s mouth curls into a wicked grin and Kageyama stares him down until it hurts, until the want in his chest becomes too much and he has to look away. 

It isn’t as though he’s not different from their last meeting. He knows this; knows that he’s grown a few inches, that he can run kilometers and kilometers without getting tired, that he can do sets infinitely more accurate than what he did in high school. Six years of training, six years since he stared at the ceiling of his room and decided that if Oikawa was going to drag him to the ends of the earth to beat him, then so be it. He’ll do it in Argentina or America or Japan, he’ll do it anywhere; all he knows is that it is something that must be done. 

So when Oikawa smiles at him, razor-sharp, Kageyama smiles back. 

\--

They meet after. They are in opposite pools, so they will not be playing each other for a few days at least. 

It should be awkward, by all means. There should be a thick string of silence hanging in the air, a reminder of all the time they have spent apart, but there isn’t. Oikawa is here again, slow and sweet, and Kageyama can feel himself falling prey to those beautiful eyes. 

But he is no longer a boy, now. 

Still, it feels almost like it did all those years ago when they were in the locker room. Except this time they’re in the Olympic village, Kageyama sitting stiffly on one of the overstuffed, brightly-colored couches of the lounge room.

“Tobio.” His gaze makes Kageyama shiver, all-consuming, raw and vulnerable.

“Tooru.” 

And they crash into each other once again, but this time it is with their lips—Oikawa’s are soft and slightly chapped, and his breath is warm, and Kageyama would laugh if he weren’t so preoccupied with running his hands through Tooru’s hair, tugging the soft locks. 

It is his first kiss. Tooru probably knows—Kageyama can never hide anything from him. Never had, and never will. 

He realizes he is pressed into the soft plush of the couch moments after, Tooru on top of him, devouring him, decimating him just as Kageyama knew he would all those years ago; but not like this. He could never have thought it would be like this. 

Or perhaps he could. Tooru had always kept up, after all; had fulfilled the promise he had made. Perhaps this was how it always was meant to be, Tooru caging him in, pulling him under, taking and taking and taking. 

A thin string of saliva connects their lips when Kageyama pushes him away. Tooru sits up, thighs bracketing Kageyama’s hips, and there is no hesitation in his expression; nothing that would signify regret or remorse or even the idea that Kageyama hadn’t wanted it, because of course he had. Tooru knew. Tooru always, always knew. 

“Not here.” Kageyama speaks, and his voice is raspy. 

Tooru smiles, and Kageyama relishes in the knowledge that he doesn’t need to explain. Tooru _knows_ , he knows, he knows. 

\--

Tooru is good, too good, good in a way that people wouldn’t believe on the surface. Kageyama knows this because, instead of rolling to the other side of the bed and facing away, he slings an arm around Kageyama’s bare waist and buries his face in his neck as Kageyama stares at the wall across from the bed. 

“You’d better get to the finals.” Tooru’s voice is low and sluggish, belatedly dripping over Kageyama’s ears. “I meant what I said. I’m not here to beat some random team.” 

Kageyama grins, though he knows Tooru can’t see. “This seems backwards.” 

Tooru let out a miffed noise, beautiful and real, as he pulls Kageyama closer. Kageyama lets him.

“I was surprised, to see you here,” Tooru says, “Almost. I was waiting, you know that? Waiting for a while. For you.” 

Kageyama’s voice is rough as he replies. “I’d follow you. Anywhere. You know that.” 

Tooru plants a kiss on the back of his neck, sending chills running up and down Kageyama’s spine. “I know that.”

The pillow seems to be made of liquid and Kageyama lets his eyes close, lets himself slip away in the secure bind of Tooru’s arms.

\--

Japan is taken down in the third bracket, Argentina in the fourth. 

The walk back to the plane is silent. His teammates are upset, but not defeated; there’s always the next game, the next goal. There is never time to mourn. 

Tooru sits next to him on the plane ride home. Kageyama looks out of the window, feeling the heat radiating off his body, and Tooru’s presence is like a drug. He breathes deep, smelling pine and lotion and something sweet, and he is calm. 

He forces himself to sit still when a hand grabs his own, squeezing. Tooru’s hand is warm; _he_ is warm, sunlight dancing across his face, pinning Kageyama to the seat with a knowing look and a gentle smirk. 

Kageyama laces his fingers through Tooru’s and closes his eyes as the plane’s engine roars. 

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i love them!!!
> 
> if u wanna yell about oikage with me or just hang in general, come talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/toputitsimply)!


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